Things can get competitive in competitive baseball, and while there's supposedly no crying in that particular sport, there's a lot of jealousy. In The Natural jealousy is one of Roy's major motivations. It starts off early, when he's jealous of a professional player's money and success with the ladies, and those two things pretty much plague him for the rest of the novel. He wants what the other guy has, which ultimately leads to his downfall.
Questions About Jealousy
- Is Roy more jealous about money, women, or baseball prowess?
- We know that Roy is jealous of Bump; are there any signs that Bump is jealous of Roy, too?
- How does jealousy figure into Roy's decision to take the money and throw the championship?
- Do you think that Memo consciously plays the men in her life off of each other, purposely making them jealous? If so, why would she do that?
Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.
The Natural shows us that no good can come from jealousy.
Roy Hobbs is motivated by jealousy, which is one of the reasons he becomes so great at baseball.